Sports of The Times; With Brains and Gall, the Old Man Just Might Carry the Astros This Time

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: October 7, 2004

AFTER two World Series rings, after six Cy Young awards, after one splintered Mike Piazza bat, there was still something Roger Clemens had never done on a ball field. In his first 20 seasons in the major leagues, Clemens had never won an opening game in a postseason series, losing three times and having no decisions in three other starts.

''Meaningless,'' Clemens said, after he finally won one yesterday.

Still recovering from a virus, the accidental Astro willed himself to pitch seven innings in a 9-3 victory over the Braves in the opener of the best-of-five-game division series.

It was a masterly ''Perils of Pauline'' performance, with Clemens battling his rustiness, the residual effects of the virus, a foxhole in front of the pitching mound and his own onrushing 42 years. The burly old master showed how to eke out a victory on patience and brains and gall.

''That is part of his leadership skill,'' said his manager, Phil Garner.

As powerful and dominant as Clemens has been, it could be argued that he has never taken a team where it had been unable to go. His new team is surely in need of historic transformation.

Think about it. The Red Sox, the team of his blazing superlative youth, reached only one World Series. Surely you remember 1986? Clemens pitched only 111/3. innings in two games, including the sixth game -- now known as either the Buckner Game or the Mookie Game, depending on your view of the world.

The fading Blue Jays did not make the postseason in his two seasons there. And when he joined the Yankees in 1999, he punched his ticket, earning two World Series rings, but the championship pattern had already been established by Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Mariano Rivera.

This year just might be different. Since their creation in the expansion of 1962, the Astros have lost all seven of their postseason series. By contrast, their early foils, the Amazing Mets, created in the same rigged draft, have won two World Series and lost two.

The Astros have had their chances. The 1986 Mets will never forget being dominated by Mike Scott in the first and fourth games, scoring only one run in 18 innings and knowing, absolutely knowing, that Scott would do it all over again in a seventh game.

Scott never got the chance because the Astros lost that epic 16-inning Game 6, which still haunts Houston fans. (And think about this: three separate franchises reeled for years because of the disasters of the 1986 playoffs -- the Astros, the Angels and the Red Sox. That kind of trauma does not happen every year.)

Now the old warrior has come back from a few short months of off-season retirement to give his hometown team some new hope. Clemens came down with a brutal virus Saturday night and was trudging around without the chesty swagger of old.

''The way I felt in the first inning, I felt I might retire on the spot,'' Clemens said afterward.

Clemens started in creaky fashion, giving up an unearned run in the first inning. He frequently had runners on base, but he shifted to Plan B, otherwise known as avoidance.

''He really manages the other team's lineup well,'' Garner said on Tuesday.

''The interesting thing is when he doesn't want to pitch to a guy, he usually closes the door when he gets to the next guy. So it's a beautiful thing to watch,'' Garner added. ''A lot of time, guys try to do that and then they end up losing the guy that they didn't want to pitch to. But Rog doesn't do that.''

There was a textbook case in the third inning. With a runner on first and two outs, Clemens carefully pitched around left-handed Adam LaRoche and dangerous Andruw Jones to get at Charles Thomas, a lefty hitter with half a season in the majors.

''You just can't give up a hittable ball,'' Clemens said.

He launched an outside strike that had Thomas leaning. Then an inside ball that straightened Thomas up. Then another outside strike that had Thomas leaning again. Then an inside called strike ended the inning.

For all that, the old man was muttering when he came off the mound. Was it the umpiring? Was it the crater that Jaret Wright of the Braves had dug in front of the rubber? Was it his own sloppiness?

''Everything,'' Clemens said.

The old man plodded through seven innings. He now has a 9-6 record in 27 postseason games, not bad at such a high level of competition.

''Things happen,'' said Bobby Cox, the Braves' manager. ''You're always going up against the other club's ace in Game 1.''

It's a fair explanation. Still, some great pitchers have found a way to immediately shape a postseason series. Yesterday, Clemens put his mark on this series.

At their own peril, Houston fans can overlook the saga of Mike Scott, and they can regard Roger Clemens's game as some kind of an omen.

Photo: Roger Clemens won the opener of a playoff series yesterday for the first time in his 21-year career. He allowed three runs, two earned, in seven innings. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)